Not all agencies are the same – Differentiating your agency and communicating its competitive advantages

If you’re like most successful agency owners and executives, you want your agency to stand out from the rank and file. To that end you first need to identify your competitive advantages – the special expertise, services, products and other factors that set you apart from the competition. Then you have to effectively communicate and promote those advantages so prospects know why it’s worth their time to meet with you - so they want to meet with you.

At PMA new teleprospecting clients fill-out an Agency Questionnaire from which we develop a tailored Phone Approach and Agency Fact Sheet so their Business Development caller has a good sense of their culture and strengths. Some agencies, particularly smaller ones, find it hard to come up with differentiators that will give them a marketing edge to magnetize prospects.

Larger agencies may have access to more markets, sophisticated on-line tools and other resources. But what can a ten-person agency do to establish themselves as “go-to” authorities and position themselves as the agency of choice? Quite a bit, actually.

Here are four examples of how smaller agencies can leverage resources and create strong, unique identities.


Collaborate, Educate, and Communicate


➢ When CSRs are knowledgeable about coverage issues, customers come away feeling assured and confident about the agency’s expertise. One well-trained CSR was able to show a customer that their umbrella policy did in fact cover a claim that another agent mistakenly thought wasn’t covered. Not only was the customer delighted with the reversal of fortune, but that whole family became staunch advocates, spreading the word about the agency’s competency.

➢ Another agency, in conjunction with a local hospital’s Travel Nurse offered a series of presentations with tips and caveats for vacation and business travel that helped establish a strong identity for the agency and gave them a meaningful competitive advantage.

➢ In collaboration with the local Chamber of Commerce and a Professor of Community Development at a local college, another agency co-sponsored a series of “Keep our Downtown Strong” meetings that examined successful business development tactics used by other communities. The information sparked initiatives that helped to strengthen the town’s economic base and the agency enjoyed considerable positive publicity and recognition.

➢ One agency that we know of reaped lots of positive PR when they helped organize an innovative loss-prevention presentation for the local school district that involved a regional carrier with special expertise in school insurance and a number of vendor experts on topics like school violence and job applicant backgound checks. The program quite successfully raised awareness of their independent agency as risk management experts in the community.